September 3, 1926

Alison Lurie (September 3, 1926) whose novel Foreign Affairs won a Pulitzer in 1985, taught at Cornell. An author interview asks about this:

'Many of your most beloved novels take place on the college campus, The War Between the Tates probably being the best known. As a professor, it is a place you know best, but what else about that setting attracts you?

'A college campus is a relatively small, self-contained community that is also ever-changing as students and staff arrive and leave, so it’s an ideal background for a novel.
'Joyce Carol Oates has said about you, “One can read Lurie as one might read Jane Austen, with continual delight.” This is nothing short of a glowing compliment, but how do you feel about the comparisons to Jane Austen? Is there something about her work that you like to emulate in your own? Do you have a favorite Jane Austen novel?

'I am deeply flattered by being compared to Jane Austen, but of course I do not consider myself her equal. I would like to have her wit, her understanding of how society and individual psychology work, and her detached sympathy with all her characters. I love all her novels—Mansfield Park perhaps less than the others.

....
'Truth and Consequences is your first novel in seven years. Why did you turn away from fiction for a time? What did your work in memoir (Familiar Spirits) and essay (Boys and Girls Forever) provide that fiction did not?

'I write fiction only when I have a story that needs to be told. After The Last Resort I did not have a really good idea for a novel, but I wanted to remember my friends James Merrill and David Jackson, so I wrote the memoir Familiar Spirits, and there were things I wanted to say, or had said, about children’s books, so I published Boys and Girls Forever.

'.... [Y]ou make your home in Key West part of the year, .... What ...[do you like about it.]

'.... Key West’s many attractions, ....[include] free-range chickens and cats.......
....

'You’ve written eleven books of fiction. Can you describe your writing process for your novels? Has it changed much through the years? How does it differ from how you would approach a memoir, essay, or nonfiction piece?

'I have published ten novels and a collection of stories, Women and Ghosts. I usually write for three or four hours a day, but some of this is rewriting—there may be five or six drafts of every novel. The main change in my method is that though I still write the first draft in longhand, I then type it onto the computer, print it out, work on the printout again in longhand, type the changes onto the computer, print it out, etc. etc. I follow the same process with nonfiction.

'Your husband, Edward Hower, is also a writer. Do you find it challenging to be married to a fellow author?

'It is wonderful to be married to another writer, if he is as sympathetic and supportive as my husband, and also, like him, a good critic.

......'
Good post for Labor Day when I just have to trim a text.